Grieving the Leaving and Turning the
Page
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As I threaded my way on a
crazy-quilt patchwork route through Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada
and Arizona, headed for the border into Mexico, I have memorized, imprinted and
loved every scrap of color and beauty. Except for one drab piece of brown
southeast of Yakima.
For much of the trip tears rolled
down my face. Each bend in the road seemed to generate memories; memories of
those in my life who have died, memories of precious times with friends and
family, memories that I had hoped would lie buried forever. I drank deeply of
each memory.
Ever since I made the decision to
move, I have been aware this is my opportunity to create a new life, a life
without the familiar comforts of place, friends, language and culture. For me,
this means I can also leave behind some old, worn-out beliefs. While driving
through that drab empty brown, I “got it”. I “got” that I really will create a
new life. I “got it” on a deeper, visceral level and burst into loud, gasping
wails doing seventy down the freeway.
Exciting? Terrifying? Cleansing?
Rejuvenating? Yes, all at the same time. Along with all the tears has come a
heightened awareness of how special it is to be alive each new day. Each day is
a new page on which to write my new life script.
Along with heightened awareness has
come a lowering of my cellular brain mass. Or something. Let me describe a
typical day. I drove the Spaghetti Bowl into Las Vegas to spend a couple days
with Tim and Tara. Tara is one of my “girls”. She and my daughter Dee went to
college together, spent holidays at my home and Tara even lived with me a
while. Tim and Tara teach school in Vegas.
I asked Tim to help me download
Microsoft Word. I had belatedly discovered that my new/old-reconditioned laptop
computer did not have Word. That explained why I could not get it to load a new
Word page for me to write. Believe me, I had tried. In the process Tim asked me
for my email address. “sondrajean@yahoo.com”, I told him. I left out the
“.ashton” part. Visa took my money. Microsoft refused to download. Tim fiddled
around with no success for an hour. Finally he called Microsoft for support. As
we are together going over all the data again, I strung together sondrajean.ashton@yahoo.com. (There you have it if you would like to email me.)
When I realized my mistake, I wanted to shoot out my eyeballs and bury my
corpse in the desert.
See, writing a new page each day
without the past hovering over everything one does is like being a young child
who has not yet learned her ABC’s. That’s me. It can be infuriating. I’m
learning all kinds of new things from the basement up.
It gets even better/worse. The
afternoon I left Tim and Tara in Vegas, I headed for Kingman, Arizona. The
entire route had me exclaiming, “Oh, My God,” around every bend of breathtaking
beauty. I pulled into a clean, cheap and adequate motel in Kingman, secured a
room and opened the back of my van to get my bag.
I had placed my bag where we three
each had to stumble over the top of it to get out the door. Tim and Tara had
spent the afternoon out. They got home at the same time I was patting around
for my invisible bag. We both called and got each other’s voice mail. Finally
connected. “Tara, I would replace everything but it has all my new underwear.
And my money.” They brought me my bag. They drove my bag to Kingman that
evening.
I felt like Scarecrow on the Yellow
Brick Road, all straw and no brains. Two weeks ago I spent fifteen days soaking
in lithium-laced hot water springs in the mountains of Montana. I would love
the explanation that I am still in lithium la-la-land. Part of me wants to
return for another dose.
The rest of me is committed to move
forward, turn a fresh page and when I find myself tripping down the Yellow
Brick Road, I can always sing and dance.
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
November 14,
2013
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